Why is my Mac so slow?

These steps will help you understand what is taking up the speed of your Mac. Please follow all the steps.

Step A:

1. Go to the Apple icon

2. Click "About This Mac"

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3. Click on "Storage"

4. Your bar should be half empty. If it is almost full or 3/4 full or more, please remove large files from you computer and put them on a hard drive.

5. Not sure how to find and remove large files from your computer? Go to step C. If your storage is less than half full, continue to step B.

Step B:

1. Click magnifying glass2. Search for "activity monitor"3. Click CPU

4. Look at the bottom left. The "idle" number should be above 86%.

5. If it is not above 86%, click CPU% to see what the applications that are taking up the most % are and try closing those applications. Here you can see "Google Chrome Helper" dominates, which means my Google windows and tabs are taking up the most memory.

6. Now select Memory

7. Look at the bottom left. Your "memory used" should not be close to "Physical Memory." Here you can see I have been using 6.68 of my 8GB memory. That is okay.

10. Then click the "Size" dropdown to sort by largest file (GB is largest)

11. Now you can see what the largest files are in your computer.

12. If your files are movies and you want to move them to a hard drive, you can also search by "kind is movie" as below. Then you can click on "Size" and sort by size.

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13. If you discovered you are maxing out on storage and have an Apple store near you, we recommend talking with them on how to move large files off your computer. Otherwise, we recommend buying a hard drive and moving large files to a hard drive to reduce your storage. We are unable to assist with this.